Liberia's Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP): an impact review and analytical assessment of a donor policy intervention for democratic state-building in a post-conflict state

In recent years, a number of African countries have scaled up their efforts to improve their democratic development and governance environments. Liberia took up that challenge, in partnership with donor agencies. Between 2006 and 2009 the country's government implemented a Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP) to, among other things, control corruption, mitigate financial mismanagement, improve the capacity for better economic management, and elevate the performance of key institutions in a post-conflict environment for democratic and peaceful state-building. This article provides a review and analytical assessment of the GEMAP in the context of the donor policy intervention framework through which it was conceived and implemented. The evolution, nature, and impact of the program are documented and analysed, and areas where there could have been greater effectiveness are discussed.     

Good governance and security: The limits of Australia's new aid programme

This article analyses the Australian Agency for International Development's (AusAID) approach to overseas development assistance (ODA) through an examination of AusAID's recent White Paper. The White Paper focuses on the nexus between poverty reduction and security in the Asia-Pacific region. We argue that the Paper's emphasis upon good governance as the key to poverty reduction and security is fundamentally flawed. This stems from the particular ideological and political conditions in which the Paper materialised. In focusing on good governance and security the Paper neglects more fundamental poverty reduction issues, while promoting policies that are difficult to implement and, when implemented, have highly problematic outcomes. This article examines the Australian-led intervention in Solomon Islands and the Australian aid programme in Indonesia as examples for the shortcomings of the approach articulated in the White Paper. We conclude by examining alternative development policies that move beyond the neo-liberal orthodoxy endorsed by AusAID.     

Mixing Up

Increased interactions between groups of people through modernization may be embraced as mutually enriching or denounced as causing “negative social impacts.’ This paper is predicated on the assumption that people's perceptions of modernization projects influence their outcomes, because people resist rather than commit to negatively perceived projects. The nature of social contact brought about through modernization is a key factor in perceptions of modernization projects. Three types of social contact in a fishing joint venture between the Solomon Islands government and a Japanese company are explored in this paper: contact between men and women, between ethnic groups within Solomon Islands, and between Solomon Islanders and foreigners. Some of the criteria by which interviewees judged social contact included whether it was peaceful or caused friction, whether it caused cultural change, and whether it was hierarchical. The types of contact are discussed in terms of those criteria to reveal their varied effects on perceptions of modernization.     

The Economy of China

Evidence suggests that following liberalisation reforms in India, public sector contributions to social development projects responsible for public goods allocation and the provision of services have receded in favour of an enlarged role for private sector initiatives, particularly through public-private partnerships. As part of a “good governance” agenda, the state is embracing such partnerships, modelled on information communication technology (ICT), within a wider development strategy (ICTD) to improve goods allocation and government's image as a trustworthy agent. This has also coincided with a changing political economy that has granted greater authority to more localised units of government over economic and developmental processes. This paper examines a case study of Urban e-Seva, an ICTD public-private partnership in Hyderabad, and couches it in a larger examination of contemporary social development in India. The paper concludes that government needs to be embedded in public-private partnerships, that it must continue to be at the forefront of allocation strategies in general, and that globalisation is strongly shaped by public institutions operating at the sub-national level. Furthermore, reforms are needed to correct for globalisation and liberalisation's inabilities to foster proper social development in India.     

State-building or state-capture? Institutional exports,local reception and hybridity of reforms in post-war Kosovo

ABSTRACT

Post-war Kosovo has been the subject of a highly intrusive international state-building project, including an unprecedented influx of international administrators, assistance and funds. However, it increasingly bears the hallmark of a weak and captured state. This special issue contributes theoretical and empirical insights that shed light on possible explanations, difficulties and prospects of the state-building project in Kosovo. Theoretically, we investigate how international and local explanations play out, interact and gain dominance over each other; highlight the local factors that shape the experience of state-building; and focus on the hybridity of institution- and state-building on the ground. Empirically, we take stock of two decades of international state-building activities and one decade of independent statehood by providing long-term and in-depth analysis of specific areas of reform – municipal governance, state bureaucracy, normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, education, creation of armed forces, security sector reforms and reception of Salafi ideologies. Such time-sensitive, case-nuanced and empirically heavy analysis enables the authors to go back and forth between the role of international activities, domestic strategies of resistance and evidence of hybrid reforms in order to test the role of competing explanations.     

Symbolic state-building in contemporary Russia

Vladimir Putin has made state-building a central goal of his presidency and recent scholarship has demonstrated that Russian formal institutions have indeed been deliberately reformed. Unlike studies that ass’ess state-building vis-à-vis a particular outcome, our research examines what kind of state Russian political elites seek to build, and focuses on symbolic state-building strategies. To capture symbolic state-building in the Putin era, we examine the Pryamaya Liniya broadcasts: annual, high-profile TV broadcasts in which citizens pose questions to the president. We find that a broad range of formal institutions appear to be central to Putin’s state-building project, a finding that runs counter to claims that governance is largely deinstitutionalized, informal and personal. We argue that symbolic state-building seeks to reconcile personalism and institutionalism, by conveying a dual image of a state in citizens’ everyday lives – emphasizing both formal institutions, while also affirming Putin as the personal guarantor of the state’s authority.     

Migration,citizenship and autochthony: strategies and challenges for state-building in Côte d'Ivoire

Although migration has for some time been an important topic in African studies, the ‘politics of migration’ remain relatively under-examined. While there is a substantial body of literature on migration and economic development, we know much less about the impact of migration on other state-building processes. The upsurge of autochthony discourses throughout much of Africa is a recent phenomenon and an alarming trend that reveals the increased politicisation of migration and the challenge these discourses pose to state-building. This article uses Côte d'Ivoire as a case study to shed light on the complex relationship between migration and state-building. It also provides a fresh perspective on a new chapter in Ivoirian politics as it re-examines this relationship in light of the recent political developments following the 2010 elections. In so doing, it provides new insights into the enduring nature of autochthony, highlighting the contemporary challenges that these discourses pose for both migrants and state-building.     

Building Neo-liberal Markets and Other Agendas: The Politics of Risk Management at AusAID

Abstract

This article analyses emerging approaches by donors to risk management, focusing on the case of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). It suggests that AusAID's understanding and management of risk are expressions of particular political and social interests and, subsequently, that its approach to risk management is inherently political in nature. While AusAID's policies and guidelines on risk management identify a wide range of risks as being relevant to the agency's work – including risks to poverty reduction and sustainable development – in practice it has focused on managing risks to the building of neo-liberal markets, both within Australia and in developing countries, and the Australian government's foreign policy objectives. To illustrate these points, we present an analysis of AusAID's approach to risk management in a major economic governance project, the Philippines-Australia Partnership for Economic Governance Reforms. We conclude by indicating ways in which donor approaches to risk management can be revised to give greater attention to the needs of the poor and civil society, while acknowledging that such revisions may be contingent upon prior changes in the structure of power and interest and/or institutional characteristics of aid policy-making processes in donor countries.     

Standort Deutschland in the globalising economy: An end to the economic miracle?

This article reviews the economic position of Germany in an era of increased internationalisation of economic activity. Since unification there have been worrying trends in the German economy: in particular, high unemployment, increasing government debt and a substantial increase in the overseas activities of Germany's major companies. However, this article argues that the micro‐economy in general, and the institutional structures inherent to the social market economy of post‐war Germany in particular, are strong. Indeed, only by understanding the historical interrelationships between the individual structures of the German social market economy is it possible to appreciate the continued strength of the German economy.     

ASIA UNDER LATE CAPITALISM

The hubris over the “rise of Asia” obscures the complexities, contradictions, and struggles that actually characterize the region. Given the economic tumult that has enveloped the West, it is not surprising that we find politicians, pundits, and market players enamored with Asia as a source of economic growth. However, this skewed reading of the region, which regularly dovetails neatly with self-interest and resurgent forms of nationalism, belies material realities. On this count, the region remains home to the majority of the world's poor, increasing levels of inequality and vulnerability (even within “the success stories”), social, political, and racial intolerance, and massive environmental degradation. Moreover, Asia's much-vaunted “charm” (often shorthand for the region's cultural, historical, and natural allure) has been seriously threatened by the accumulation at all costs of late capitalism. The author's photographic work over the past decade has attempted to grapple with and communicate some of these realities—a humble intervention to bring down to earth perceptions of the region in which he lives.     

The Australian Right in the “Asian Century”: Inequality and Implications for Social Democracy

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the policy discourse of Australian right-wing governments, exploring how such governments have combined neo-liberal economic policies with social conservatism, populism, cultural nationalism and forms of authoritarianism. It also examines the resulting response of social democratic political parties. As a predominantly Western country situated in the Asia-Pacific region, Australian experience offers interesting insights into the domestic politics of right-wing governments facing the changing geo-political and geo-economic imperatives of the “Asian Century.” Conservative Australian governments have reasserted traditional Anglo-centric national identity and used competition from key Asian countries to further justify market-driven policies, reduced welfare benefits and reduced industrial relations standards. The social democratic Australian Labor Party has responded to right-wing government policy by placing an increased emphasis on challenging social and economic inequality. However, Labor’s own plans for equitable economic growth potentially underestimate the challenges posed by the intermeshing of the Australian and Asian economies and provide insights into the dilemmas that a changing geo-economics poses for Western social democracy more broadly. Meanwhile Australian conservatism is facing not just challenges from its social democratic opponent but also from far-right populist forces critical of globalisation.     

The Asian Economic Crisis and Capitalist Restructuring: Two Approaches

ABSTRACT

The global capitalist system is at a particular historical juncture with a dilution of the capitalist core away from Western (and Japanese) centers of accumulation to China and India, among other countries. What is the nature of capitalism in these countries? Are China and India going along the same development trajectories that advanced capitalist countries followed earlier? Is their accumulation model the same as that of the OECD economies or is accumulation different under late capitalism? The author argues that capitalism in India and China is “compressed,” meaning that the phases of capitalism do not follow one another in sequential order. Instead, some phases, such as primitive accumulation, may be delayed or be experienced at the same time as advanced accumulation under the corporate sector, thereby producing a mode of development that does not generate widespread employment. The author contends that capitalism in India and China is compressed and he demonstrates empirically that primitive accumulation, petty commodity producing sectors, and mature capitalism in late-industrializing countries reinforce each other, creating precarious forms of employment in the process.     

Progress,power, and violent accumulation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's recent travails have challenged the concept of progress as it is popularly conceived, as they have forced social scientists to revisit many of the verities of nationalist history and the initial euphoria of Zimbabwean ‘liberation’. Critics of ‘fast-track’ land reform and patriotism, however, have been as simplistic as the regime's academic praise singers, and often simply turn celebratory scholarship upside down. Historically rooted and specifically applied concepts of primitive accumulation can assist the understanding of the development of Zimbabwe's coercive networks of accumulation and their more recent manifestations, but they do not solve the problems of how to lessen violence and deepen democracy in the short term.     

Eritrea's politics and governance crisis as political culture epiphenomena

The emergence of Eritrea as a new nation apparently required the government to transcend inherited forms of identity. It has tried to do this by forging a new political culture out of collective memories of war, but this attempt was only partially successful. Largely steeped in political symbolism and populist rhetoric of sacrifice and self-reliance, the regime's attempt to socialise the Eritrean society with valorised revolutionary values is designed to camouflage the political reality of repression. By taking the concept of political culture as a framework for analysis, this article argues that Eritrea's double tragedy has two major causes. Firstly, it emanates from the surreal, tightly controlled personal rule of Isaias Afeworki who, in the face of declining legitimacy and a tenuous grip on power, has raised the level of repression to new heights. Secondly, it has its origins in the chasm in political orientations and belief systems between the body politic and society, resulting in a culture of anomie which expresses itself in mistrust, impunity, acquiescence and fatalism. The article argues that a viable political framework of state-building is only possible when two conditions are met. In the first place it is necessary that political institutions evolve within a political structure that is rooted in a rule of law that promotes the legitimacy of incumbents and policy governance. In addition, the political framework must facilitate the promotion of civil society as a political space for political education in order to foster the stable reproduction of democratic values of tolerance and coexistence.     

The viability of the welfare state in Botswana

ABSTRACT

Vulnerability, mainly manifesting in poverty, economic risk and insecurities of life, is a universal problem. There are huge pockets of vulnerability in the developing world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan African states provide social welfare goods to address vulnerability. Social welfare programmes cost money, hence, there is a need to consider issues of sustainability, particularly, given constrained revenue envelopes. Similarly, while Botswana has posted developmental successes, there are vulnerabilities such as poverty, unemployment and income inequality which demand intervention through welfare programmes. Thus, the objective of this desktop study was to discuss the state's response to vulnerability. It concluded that Botswana funds welfare programmes. However, there are affordability challenges, mainly, a constrained post-2007 fiscal space calls into question the viability of the welfare state. The general lesson from the case is that while the welfare state goes to the heart of the social contract, its viability must be guaranteed through reforms.     

Challenges and Prospects for Economic Development in Africa

Africa's history of economic development and growth has been characterised by failed experiments, poor planning and impractical orthodoxies. This left the continent at the mercy of states and ruling elites who were unable to meet the challenges of both rising expectations from their citizens and the imperatives of sound policy design and implementation. Difficult existential conditions, including rising levels of poverty and bad governance, have been compounded by the vagaries of the international environment and Africa's peripheral position in its political economy and division of labour. Auspicious growth indicators over the last decade, fuelled mainly by global commodity demand and improved macro-economic management, have recently been undermined by the global financial crisis. The crisis has again exposed the continent to the spectre of depressed growth, with serious implications for state capacity and social welfare. This article examines the main ideological fault-lines, development challenges, and external factors that have characterised Africa's economic development and concludes that the future of the continent will remain one of this century's great challenges.     

Social Struggles in Present Day Argentina

Since the mid 1970s, Argentine society has gone through a period characterised as counterrevolutionary. The conservative social forces, led by the financial oligarchy, seized power and government by means of the coup d'état of 1976, and imposed an economic and social policy towards the working class, based on wage cuts and a lengthening of the working day. When the military governments were replaced by civilian ones, physical coercion was replaced by economic coercion, through market laws with unemployment and wage cuts reaching unprecedented levels. Although the popular forces were weakened by the unfavourable development of social struggles since the mid–1970s, during the 1990s government policies were confronted by the people through different forms of struggle.
This article presents the results of research on the different forms of social struggle carried out by the working class and other popular classes since the end of the 1980s until today. It aims to conceptualise the forms of rebellion (foot riot, riot, strikes and roadblocks), to determine the different moments of social struggle and the likely trends of its development.     

China's fascination with the development of Singapore

Singapore has achieved rapid economic growth and has also managed to maintain a stable social order, characteristics that make it attractive to China as a model for future development, according to Professor John Wong, Research Director of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore. The Singapore government has played a vital role in fostering economic development, and while it has eschewed mandatory economic planning in favor of support for free enterprise and open competition, it has nevertheless been very active in providing macro economic guidance for the economy, and in managing a number of economic and business activities. The success of the government's participation in economic development has been made possible by a strong political leadership dedicated to the pursuit of economic growth, an efficient and incorruptible public administration, and an effective legal system. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Symposium on the Government's Role in the Market Economy, held at the China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD), Haikou, Hainan, China, in January 1997.     

Economic Governance on Trial: High Courts and Elected Leaders in Argentina and Brazil

Beginning in the 1980s, social and political actors across Latin America turned to courts in unprecedented numbers to contest economic policies. Very different patterns of high court–elected branch interaction over economic governance emerged across the region, with crucial implications for economic development, democratic governance, and the rule of law. Building on both institutional and strategic accounts of judicial politics, this article argues that high court “character,” a relatively stable congeries of informal institutional features, channels interbranch struggles into persistent patterns. Two case studies illustrate the argument. In Argentina, the high court's political character encouraged a pattern of court submission to elected leaders marked by periodic bouts of interbranch confrontation over economic governance. In Brazil, the high court's statesmanlike character induced interbranch accommodation. This study demonstrates that even in politically unstable settings, institutional features can shape law and politics.     

The present state and future prospects of the German Volksparteien

Party performance in the 1994 ‘super'‐election year led many observers to conclude that the major parties had managed to stabilise their position. However, subsequent Land elections show a continuing downward trend in their support, evident since the 1980s, and party membership is also falling. None the less, the major parties will retain their predominance at the parliamentary level in government. In consequence there is a widening gap between their control of the party state and the basis for their legitimation in society. This development may be intensified in view of the economic and social problems faced by the Federal Republic.